


Apples Fall

by StandinShadow



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Liking Versus Loving, Self-Esteem Issues, implied child neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 21:27:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13889463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StandinShadow/pseuds/StandinShadow
Summary: Keith reminds Krolia of many things: fire burning on a cold winters' night, the sound of knives clattering against the pavement, the bitter cries of mourning birds when one of their allies fall. But most of all, Keith reminds her of herself, of every edge made too sharp, every wave of emotion too strong not to pull everyone around down with her.





	Apples Fall

  Krolia thinks things will get better after the first few days. She needs them to get better. Krolia can take the angry tears, the avoidance, the way Keith flinches from her hugs. All of them make her stomach curl unpleasantly, like it’s rotting from the inside, but she knows she deserves each and every one. She left him alone for 15 years with no explanation, no clues but the knife between his fingertips. Keith is like her, fire and air, burning with judgment one moment and distant and rational the next, changes happening with no warning. His father had been more like water, able to go with the flow, free.

   Krolia wishes, for his sake, Keith was more like that. But he isn’t and Krolia can do nothing but hope that this anger is the only way in which Keith is like her. Fate should repay her with that much for having to leave her son behind. For choosing to. Keith should get to be his father’s son. The fact that Keith forgives her, or decides to act like he has, within a week is probably more than she deserves and gives her some hope there is some of the man she left behind in her son too. She did not forgive her parents. But then, she also never got the chance. They died as they lived. Spies.

  “Keith, we should talk,” Krolia says as he sits across from Keith on his bed, one hand curling in the sheets. She can do this. She’s been imagining this moment for 15 years, usually on earth with Keith smiling up at her, still small and innocent like when she left him. Humans age so fast, she thought maybe Keith would be somewhere in the middle, that she’d have more time with him as a child. But that’s not what happened and Krolia has to deal with the boy in front of her. That’s all there is to it. She’s not going to choke now that he’s finally here just because it’s not the way she always imagined. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “Not much to say,” Keith mutters in a low voice, bordering on petulant as he glances away from Krolia and toward the floor. Krolia swallows and tries to push her frustration down. Keith has every right to not want to talk about his past, she just wishes he didn’t look so … moody about it. Keith glances back up at her, biting his lip in the same way she used to when she was nervous. Krolia always thought it made her look weak. “Look, I didn’t really have – my life on earth sucked. I got thrown out of the Garrison, I didn’t really have any friends outside of Shiro, and then I – ended up in space.”

  “You were a paladin, right? What was that like? What made you pick the Blade of Marmora instead?” Krolia asks in a voice she knows is a bit too bright, questions coming out too fast. She wants to turn this around, to see some of the sweetness, the warmth, that human quality that is so hard to explain to the rest of the Blade in her son. To see what was preserved by leaving him. Krolia needs to know it’s still there.

  “I wanted to stop Lotor,” Keith tells her in a tight voice, gaze growing harder as he spits out the other man’s name.  The lines of his shoulders grow tenser, voice growing anxious as he keeps talking. There is no warmth in his voice, only smoke and ash. “And I wasn’t like Shiro. He’s a paladin too. I had to replace him as the black paladin and it didn’t … I was a bad leader and I’m kind of a loner, so it just made more sense for me to be the one to go.”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I can see that,” Krolia answers with a small nod, trying to smile even as the words feel like another slap in the face. Good leadership takes those things, understanding, wisdom. Does Keith have none of those things? Is he truly his mother’s son? Krolia tries to give him a reassuring smile as she leans toward him, tries to capture the feeling she had when she first saw him. “You never have to worry about being alone in the Blade.”

  “No, you definitely don’t,” Keith murmurs softly, gaze growing far away and wistful as he stares out across the room. Krolia can tell Keith doesn’t want to be here, but he’s too mission-focused, too cold, to go back to Voltron. Maybe they wouldn’t welcome him back. God know Kolivan wasn’t happy to see her back today.

* * *

  “Keith, we don’t have time to go after Voltron! We have a mission to accomplish,” Kolivan explains in a voice that sounds more exasperated than anything else, brow furrowing as he stares down at her son. Krolia is torn and annoyed that Keith is making her feel that way. She thought that she would only have to feel compromised once over him, not that it would be an everyday occurrence. She knows why he wants to save his friends, or she can guess, but she also knows Kolivan is right when he says it’s untenable. They have missions to go on, people to save. And Voltron has far more allies than the Blade ever will.

  Keith crosses his arms, taking a few more steps toward Kolivan, glare growing hotter with each step, voice rising with each word. He looks just like her when Kolivan demanded she come back from earth after she met his father. Stubborn and angry and willing to doom everyone for what he wants. That emotion is … she can’t call it a mistake, not with Keith right there in front of her. Never. But that feeling will only bring him to ruin. Krolia knows that better than anyone. “No! Are you even listening to yourself? You’re the one who told Lance it wasn’t acceptable to lose Voltron!  Shiro could die, so could Lance or Allura or Hunk -”

  “They have the Olkari and the resistance with them, they have enough support. You know that,” Kolivan reminds him with a tired stare, voice clipped in a way that always upset Krolia when she was younger. Keith stiffens at his words, biting his lip as he looks away from Kolivan and takes a deep breath. He mutters something about patience under his breath before meeting the other man’s gaze again.

  “No! We both know that things could go wrong, look what happened during the Kral Zera,” Keith snaps as he uncrosses his arms, throwing them out to the side and balling his hands into fists. Krolia meets Kolivan’s gaze, raising one eyebrow, because Keith has a point. Even she heard about that, how they nearly lost Voltron for organized discord.

  “Yes, an explosion that could’ve been avoided if your friends in Voltron had been forthright with us about their plans,” Kolivan counters in a tight voice, tone bordering on harsh on the last few words. Krolia watches as her son winces, hands tightening so that the knuckles change shades. Kolivan is telling the truth then. This Shiro and Voltron Keith adores so much failed to keep them in the loop and jeopardized the universe because of it. Krolia can’t say she sees what’s worth saving. “You’re asking me to divert our mission – a mission Voltron gave us – to rescue people who do not even consider it necessary to keep us informed of their actions.”

  “It’s not like that! Look, I’m gonna go,” Keith mutters as he turns on his heel without waiting to be dismissed, arms crossed again as he moves across the bridge. Krolia expects him to stop and apologize, or barring that, to wait for his orders. But Keith doesn’t, moving swiftly past both of them to the heavy metal doors at the end of the bridge. The gaze he shoots back at them is at once hurt and searing, both judge and jury and finding them wanting. Then he’s gone.

  Kolivan lets out a tired sigh, like this is a regular occurrence. Krolia wonders how many missions her son has ruined; how many things were lost because he’s as judgmental and stubborn as her.

* * *

  “What are you doing? You don’t have any orders to take that ship out, Keith,” Krolia calls as she walks into the bay, raising an eyebrow as she watches his hands brush against one of their planes. She can’t pretend she’s surprised to find him here. He is her son.

  Keith winces, gaze shooting everywhere but at her, biting his lip as he seems to be trying to decide if he should lie or not. Krolia just shakes her head minutely, because he’s already given himself away. Krolia is starting to doubt why Kolivan ever took her son on as a Blade. Maybe they’d lost more men than she thought while she was at the base? Why take a child – or someone barely out of childhood, she can’t tell how old Keith is – into war otherwise?

  “What? I’m not allowed to leave the base unless I have orders too? Am I a prisoner?” Keith asks with a bitter scoff, rolling his eyes as the cockpit opens. Krolia knows that look all too well, knows the look of rebellion flickering across Keith’s gaze. She’s made the same face a thousand times before. It’s what got her sent on the mission she was on in the first place. Keith can’t be afforded that same luxury.

  Not with his face. Hell, even if he turned purple and gained fur, he’d still be too recognizable, to well-known as the paladin with Galra blood running through his veins. He’s a walking target determined to make himself easier to hit. She won’t let him.

  “No, but you are a spy and you’re smart enough to know that comes with certain restrictions,” Krolia reminds him in a tired voice, hating how much she sounds like Kolivan right now. But someone needs to, if Keith isn’t going to end up captured or dead, if she’s to make sure she doesn’t end up comprised for the second time in a matter of days. She thought Keith cared about the mission. She thought he at least _understood_ it. Krolia guesses first impressions can be misleading after all. “Or at least I hope you are.”

  “Look, let’s just cut to the chase, we both know that I’m going to help Voltron. Either you’re with me or you’re not, but I’m going so get out my way,” Keith tells her as he stands on the edge of the plane, gaze daring her to try and stop him, a smirk dancing at the corner of his mouth. He looks arrogant, hotheaded and wanting to fight the world just to prove that he can, or maybe to prove that he can’t. Krolia knows that it can go either way with people like them, and both lead to the same disaster.

  “Don’t make me use a taser on you Keith, I won’t hesitate,” Krolia warns him as her hand reaches her holster. Keith looks shocked for a moment, mouth forming a small ‘o’, and then his gaze grows hard again, the violet deepening as he moves closer to her. Krolia looks down at Keith and sees fire that’s hardened clay into steel. There is nothing soft, nothing good or malleable about her son. He is like any other Galra, all anger and fight and fear and nothing else. She knows there must be, _needs_ there to be more. Keith cocks his head to the side, voice almost emotionless the next time he speaks. “You know your orders and you know it’s not safe.”

  “You knew your orders,” Keith points out as he meets her gaze with a strange one of his own, at once victorious and broken. Krolia swallows because he’s right and she failed. She failed and there’s no stopping Keith. He is a monster of her own creation and he will burn himself down before anyone stops him, all impulse and anger and protectiveness no one asked for or wants.

  “It’s not the same,” Krolia mutters even as she takes a step back from him, holding both her hands up so Keith can see that she’s not going to try and stop him. Keith nods, lips twisting into a grimace before he turns away from her. Krolia watches the ship fly out of the cockpit as her eyes burn with unshed tears.

  Keith will come back from this, Krolia believes that in her gut. He’s a good fighter, a good pilot, if nothing else, and she’s been told Voltron is as well. Krolia just isn’t sure she wants to see him when he does. She wonders what that makes her.

* * *

  Krolia watches as Keith paces across her bedroom, having stopped by when she didn’t come to see him when he got back from his mission. Not in the med bay as they healed the scratch marks on his arm, not during his debriefing. Krolia knows it’s selfish, cruel even, but she needs time to process what she’s done. Krolia thought that leaving Keith would let him flourish, let him become something soft and warm, something good. now she fears it’s done just the opposite, the boy in front of her hard in his gaze and burning with too many emotions – just like her – as he finally comes to a full stop in front of her. The one that comes to the forefront the most this time is shame.

  “You’re mad at me. Look, I know you don’t get it, even though you should – the paladins are – were the closest thing I had to a family,” Keith explains as he paces around the dock, arms crossed as he keeps meeting her eye only to look away just as quickly. Krolia keeps her face carefully blank, swallowing down the strange mixture of emotions she doesn’t want to name yet. Then she’ll know which ones are missing. “And as sad as that might be, I needed to help them.”

  Krolia wonders if she should tell Keith she’s not the one he should be worried about right now. Kolivan is. Krolia has no say here, no dominion. Keith is an adult, and she was a fool to think she had any place in his life. Her parents never had one in hers. Why would this be any different> Still, Krolia shrugs her shoulders, voice coming out tight when she next speaks even as she tries to swallow down the urge to fight with Keith. “Didn’t look like you did from the footage. It looked like you mostly got in the way, just like we told you that you would.”

  “Things have changed. Lance has a sword now,” Keith tells her as though that’s supposed to explain anything – except then it does. Lance is the boy who replaced him as the Red Lion. Now he’s replaced him in close combat too. Voltron truly doesn’t, won’t ever need Keith again. He’s hers now, the Blade’s, and they don’t even want him. Krolia thinks Keith knows that, his gaze flicking away her from her and to the ground as though he’s hoping it will open up to reveal teeth. She wishes it would under her too. “He’s not perfect with it yet, but I’m sure he’ll get there. They worked well together, the team I mean.”

  “You mean without you,” Krolia says curtly, not feeling much of anything as she watches Keith’s face crumple, eyebrows sloping down and face scrunching up like he’s fighting off tears. There’s no room for tears on this ship, not if Keith intends to keep being a Blade. And from the sounds of it, he’s out of other options.

  “Yeah, I guess so. It makes sense – I kind of have a – I wasn’t a team player,” Keith admits in a low voice, gaze dropping to the ground with a mixture of shame that’s chillingly familiar to Krolia. She remembers it on her own face when she was younger, when she made every Blade team Kolivan assigned her to fail. Keith isn’t as bad as her – but then maybe he is, because he went back to save Regris and then Shiro and God knows who else, just like her – but he’s bad enough to feel the same ugly truth uncurl in his chest.

  They aren’t people built to be liked, to have a community. They’re loners by nature, not by choice.

  “No, no one in our family really is,” Krolia tells him with a quick shrug because she had no chosen family, neither did her parents. It’s one of the reasons they were all such useful agents for the Blade. Outside of each other, they worried about no losses. Sometimes Krolia doubts her parents even worried about that, gone from her life by the time she was five.

  “I guess that makes sense, dad didn’t really seem to have a lot of friends. I guess you couldn’t, being a spy and all,” Keith murmurs with a grimace, weak and tired in a way that makes another surge of rage go through Krolia. Keith should be strong, should be friendly and warm like his father was – he might not have had a lot of friends, but everyone loved him and wanted him around. What did she do – what did Keith do – to be cursed with her personality and drives, to be someone who pushes people away without having to do much of anything? She wants – wanted better for her son. It’s not fair.

  “Not if you want to be a good one. You’re not a good one, so there might be some hope for you,” Krolia answers him with a slight smile, not sure she believes her own words. She wants too though, wants to think that Keith being a terrible spy might be because he’s meant for kinder things. Not just that he’s bad at the only thing he should be good at on top of everything else. If Keith hates being a spy enough, if he longs for … she knows there is no Lion for him, but that doesn’t mean – there must be some space for her son outside this life of anger and vengeance.

  “I’ll learn,” Keith says with a hint of bitterness, resignation in his gaze as he looks away from her and toward someone Krolia can’t see. Voltron maybe, or the Shiro he seems so afraid of disappointing, or one of the other pilots. Maybe his father back on earth. She wonders if he liked Keith. She doesn’t think so.  Krolia listens to Keith talk, heart sinking as each word confirms her worst fear. There is no place for Keith beyond the Blade and no place for him in it. Her finding him did nothing to make him less of a lost boy. “I’m fast and I’m small and I was never going to be able to go undercover anyway. I know what my mission is.”

  “You shouldn’t accept that, you should want more than that. You should want more than for Voltron to be fine without you,” Krolia tells Keith, voice heavy with frustration as she balls her hands into fists. She blinks rapidly to push away the onslaught of tears building in the back of her skull. She will not cry for the things she gave away willingly. She has not earned that.

  “You don’t have to act like a mom, you barely know me,” Keith mutters with a slight eye roll, though the small smile he gives her a second later is genuine, almost tender. Krolia feels her heart catch in her throat because Keith thinks … he thinks she’s crying because she is kind, not out of disappointment. For a second, in the gentle curve of his mouth, she sees the warmth of his father. But then it’s gone, voice coming out like ice as he meets her gaze with a tired one of his own. “Besides, it’s not like my actions are the only ones that were a mistake lately. Kolivan said the Galra tamed that weapon. Who knows how many people it’s killed by now.”

  “It was a calculated risk,” Krolia answers him in a tight voice. She doesn’t like being reminded of her failures, and especially not by Keith. He’s never sounded more like her than he does right now, angry and judgmental and just a little too self-hating for it to be about her. Except at the same time it is, for she’s the one who made Keith this way.

  This boy standing in front of her, too young to be here and too old to send away, with the blazing eyes and lack of softness, is her reckoning. He is everything about Krolia that is wrong, everything about her that hurt others: The mission, the Blade, Kolivan, Keith’s father, Keith himself. Krolia knows Keith like he’s a mirror. He will destroy some part of everyone he touches even as he saves their lives, ashes left in his wake, drowning in his own guilt but unable to put out his own flame until the day he is. Krolia is terrified she’ll be there to see it. “You shouldn’t have rescued me.”

  Krolia isn’t cruel enough to say Keith’s right.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I definitely don't think things will be this dire in canon, or I'm hopeful they won't be. But the idea that Krolia might not like Keith kept wiggling around in my head, to the point where I had to get this fic out as a sort of what if.


End file.
